Re: [9fans] Plan 9

["Thomas Bushnell, BSG" <tb+usenet@becket.net>]

presotto@closedmind.org writes:

> >Right now, if I want a given file to appear *here* in my visible
> >filespace, there are two ways: I can bind it, I can move/copy it.
>
> Making copies of something is very different than adding a new
> name for it.  Are you suggesting that one can get away with
> one or the other?  Not attacking, just trying to understand.

I'm not implying that either is sufficient for the other.  In Unix,
say, there is this thing called a "hard link" by the masses; the
cognoscenti just call it a "link".  A "link" is what connects a
name-in-directory to a file.

Now in Unix, and in Plan 9, there are two places that links get
specified.  One place is in directories themselves.  In Unix, it's "on
disk"; in Plan 9, it's via the file protocol.

The other places is in the "mount table"; in Unix there's one
system-wide table; in Plan 9 there is a per-process inherited table.

My idea is that these two should be unified (keep in mind I'm talking
about "some future system", not suggesting a big design alteration of
existing systems).